<p>Could any New Yorker help me on this?</p>
<p>If I am at Grand Central Terminal at 7:00 am (i.e., morning rush hour) on a weekday, how easy can I catch a cab from a taxi stand? Do I need to wait a long time?</p>
<p>Also, is the taxi stand at E 43 street and Vanderbuilt Ave, or 42 street and Vanderbuilt Ave?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Go out any door and hail a cab in under 2 minutes.</p>
<p>where do you want to go and do you have any luggage?</p>
<p>If it’s not raining it shouldn’t be a problem. If it’s raining, it always seems like very cab is already taken.</p>
<p>Go the Vanderbilt Avenue exit; the taxi stand used to be and probably still is right outside that door–not at the corner of 42nd Street, probably closer to the Yale Club. I am sure you can get a taxi outside any GCT door though and if you are going downtown you might do better to go out the Lexington Avenue exit. Traffic should not yet be superheavy at 7, since it really isn’t rush hour for people getting into the city by train.</p>
<p>
101th Street and Madison Ave in east uptown. One relatively large luggage. (one with wheels as you may often see at any airport.)</p>
<p>I am asking this for DS, who is not familiar with NYC at all, especially its subway system. He will stay at a hotel near GCT (a “cheaper” one at E. 45th street and Madison, not an upscale one like Hyatt GCT.) overnight and needs a cab the next morning.</p>
<p>I wonder whether this info posted back in 2008 is still valid and whether it is good to go to that tax stand to wait for a cab (Is the waiting line very long at 7:00 am weekday?)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/tlc/new-taxi-stand-at-grand-central[/url]”>http://www.yellowcabnyc.com/tlc/new-taxi-stand-at-grand-central</a></p>
<p>Just curious, since one of you mentioned the Yale Club: What do they do at the Yale Club? Is it a very active club? Or, do they have a party once in while during weekend only? (if anybody here happens to know this.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the helps.</p>
<p>Yep. No problem, unless it’s raining. </p>
<p>If it is, KNOW YOUR RIGHTS, lol. You may think you’ve got a cab pulling up next to you and an experienced New Yorker will just step right in front of you and hop in.</p>
<p>I don’t mean you actually have any rights, lol, just that you need to be aggressive. IN a nice way, of course :).</p>
<p>And, as others have said, you aren’t really looking for a taxi stand (a la airport taxi stands). You’re just going to step out the door and stick out your arm… step off the curb to do it if you’re like most New Yorkers. Or go to a corner and stick out your arm. Like you mean it :).</p>
<p>Yale Club – [Yale</a> Club of New York - Home](<a href=“http://www.yaleclubnyc.org/]Yale”>http://www.yaleclubnyc.org/)</p>
<p>If your son is staying at a hotel, they should be able to get a taxi for him in front of the hotel.</p>
<p>There is a car service company, Carellimo, in NYC that you could reserve. I just typed in approximate address (based on what you wrote), from 42nd st to 104 st the cost is $21, with tip $25. It maybe easier for your son, with few $$ more.</p>
<p>I used that car service often when we lived in NYC.</p>
<p>oldfort, Do you mean “Carmellimo” instead of Carellimo" (with an “m” after “Car”)?</p>
<p>[CarmelLimo</a> - NY Limousine Service New York City, Airport Limousine Services. Limousine New York City (NYC) & At NY Airport](<a href=“http://www.carmellimo.com/]CarmelLimo”>http://www.carmellimo.com/)</p>
<p>Is this a national-chain car service company? How is it different from SuperShuttle? Does the latter only go to/from airport but the former can go anywhere?</p>
<p>The hotel he will stay at may be pretty run-down. I doubt they would provide any “cab hailing” service. I hope they do.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>My fat fingers…Yes, you do have the right website. They started in NY and have been around for a long time. I don’t know if they are national chain now. They are not the premier car service (for corporations), but they are very reasonable.</p>
<p>Thanks!
The hotel he is going to stay at is:
Roosevelt Hotel New York
45 E 45th St, between Vanderbuilt and Madison.</p>
<p>Do you think this kind of hotel may help hail a cab for him? Can a cab (or a car from a car service company like carmel limo) stop on the busy street in front of a hotel like this waiting for him?</p>
<p>Roosevelt Hotel isn’t as bad as you think.
I know the hotel and many of my colleagues have stayed there. Yes, they would help your son get a cab when he is ready.</p>
<p>The Roosevelt Hotel is about a block from my office, and it’s a perfectly nice hotel; we’ve had our firm holiday party there a number of times. It’s certainly not run down; maybe “slightly faded glory” would be a better description. You know, the kind of place that was at its peak in about 1950, and may be past its prime, but is still kept up well.</p>
<p>And yes, I’m sure that one of the doormen will hail a taxi for your son; I see taxis lining up in front all the time. (I believe there are exits on both 45th and 46th Streets, but he would probably want to use 45th Street. A taxi could just turn onto Madison Avenue and go straight up north to where he needs to go.)</p>
<p>As for Grand Central, there is a genuine taxi stand outside the 42d Street exit, going west towards Madison. Outside the Vanderbilt Avenue exit there’s a circular driveway that taxis use to pick people up; Vanderbilt goes north, which is what your son needs to do. Outside the Lexington Avenue exit I think it’s a little harder to find a cab, but Lex goes south so your son wouldn’t want to use it anyway.</p>
<p>In general, this is one of the easiest areas to find a taxi in the City. Especially at 7 am! At that time, one ought to be able to get a cab in about 60 seconds, if not sooner. If you’re looking for a taxi at, say, 5 pm on a weekday, there’s no good place to do it. And if there are a few drops of rain, forget it!</p>
<p>It is comforting to know that this hotel isn’t as bad as I imagined.</p>
<p>The reason why he choose that hotel is that it is close to GCT and it is where he gets off, and if his skill of hailing a cab is not good enough to secure a cab, he could go to the taxi stand at GCT.</p>
<p>As you can probably tell, I have a big-city-phobia :)</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>Car services are like cabs that you “reserve.” Used very often and will pick up your S wherever he specifies - street corner or whatever. Good option when you want to be sure you’ll be picked up when you need to and don’t want to worry about competition from other “cab hailers.”</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but I don’t think a car service should be necessary in this case. Keep in mind that they are generally quite a bit more expensive than a street taxi; they charge a flat rate, rather than what’s on the meter. </p>
<p>If your son does want to use a car service, it’s best to reserve the car the night before.</p>
<p>At 7am it should be no problem to hail a cab (or get doorman to) on Madison to go uptown. The GCT area doesn’t really get hopping until 8/8:30am. </p>
<p>I have been to several meetings at the Roosevelt. It’s perfectly acceptable, maybe not upscale like Waldorf, but a great location. Tell him to grab food at one of the many coffee shops/delis in the area vs buying overpriced food in the hotel. There are many coffee carts on 45th street in front of 200 Park (just a block east).</p>
<p>Where is he going after he’s done at 101st & Madison? That’s the area that might be harder to find a cab? If he needs to head to the airport, I have reserved cabs from dial7 (212-777-7777). They also have a website.</p>
<p>It should be quite easy to find a downtown-bound cab from 101st and Madison because it is right near all the hospitals and he can just go one block over to Fifth Avenue and pick one up if Madison does’t look promising. Madison is an uptown-direction northbound) street and Fifth is downtown (southbound). In fact I am guessing he will be right at Mt. Sinai.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I can’t imagine there is any need for a person of normal mobility to use a car service to get from a major midtown hotel to the hospital zone uptown! To the OP–the route your son is traveling is basically NYC 101–transportation should very routine. I don’t want to say don’t worry because we always worry as parents, but really, it is not a complicated journey.</p>
<p>mcat2 – my granddaughter and I took our first trip to New York two years. Lived all my life in small towns, and never rode in a taxi. Like many things in New York, I found it wasn’t quite as intimidating as I had feared. Tell your son to stand a little off the curb, so the taxi driver can see him, but not so far off to be a hazard. If he’s at an intersection, move down a little. If it’s a two-way street, go to the side in the direction he wants to travel. Raise his arm up, and wave it around a little. Act like he knows what he’s doing. I also found it was helpful to print the destination on a piece of paper, and hand that to the driver. We took Amtrak from Delaware to NYC, and arrived at 4:00 pm on a Friday, and had no trouble getting a taxi. He’ll do just fine.</p>